


More Important Things

by iam93percentstardust



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Bickering, Canon-Typical Violence, Humor, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Kidnapping, M/M, Old Married Couple, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25589854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: Kidnappings, Nile comes to learn, are a simple fact of life when you’re part of an immortal band of warriors dedicated to upholding all that is right and good in the world.Wow, there’s a sentence she never thought she’d say.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 66
Kudos: 1269





	More Important Things

Kidnappings, Nile comes to learn, are a simple fact of life when you’re part of an immortal band of warriors dedicated to upholding all that is right and good in the world.

Wow, there’s a sentence she never thought she’d say.

It’s never again like how it was with Merrick Pharmaceuticals. No one is ever looking for them because of their immortality, especially not now with Copley covering their tracks. But when you’re part of an immortal band of warriors dedicated to upholding all that is right and good in the world, you tend to make a few enemies and, try as you might, you can’t always get everyone involved in a drug trafficking ring or a warlord’s band. Hence, the kidnapping.

She’s been kidnapped twice now: once with Andy and once on her own. When it was with Andy, they’d used gas and Nile suspects that’s the only reason they were kidnapped in the first place because she doubts Andy would have gone quietly the way Nile had when it had been just her facing off against ten armed men. Sure she could have eventually beaten them but they had been standing in a crowded marketplace—she hadn’t wanted anyone innocent to get hurt and she _really_ hadn’t wanted any of the bystanders to notice her immortality.

This is the first time though that she’s ever been kidnapped with Joe and Nicky. It had been gas again, something potent and strong that made her wonder if they’d accidentally gotten the dosage wrong since she’s pretty sure she died at least once before waking up for good in an abandoned warehouse. She says _accidentally_ because in another room, she can hear some of their captors talking and she’s pretty sure they’re not smart enough to have actually figured out their secret.

Nile wasn’t there when Joe and Nicky had been taken by Merrick Pharmaceuticals but she can’t help but imagine that it had probably looked something like this, with Joe hunched over Nicky, muttering at him in Italian though she has no idea what.

She likes the way Italian sounds, especially the way it just rolls off of Joe and Nicky’s tongues. She’d asked Nicky once if he would teach her, seeing as how Andy is already working on teaching her several other languages—Mandarin and Greek and Swahili among others—and Booker’s supposedly going to teach her French once his banishment is over. Nicky had just looked at her and simply told her, “No.”

It had been Joe who had told her that Italian and an ancient dialect of Arabic that no one else speaks anymore are _their_ languages. Andy had told her later, “Don’t be offended. I don’t speak them either.” At the time, Nile, only a few weeks into her immortality, hadn’t understood but by this point, she understands it perfectly.

Joe and Nicky, Nicky and Joe, two suns that orbit each other, are terribly soft, even when they’re speaking in English. She can only imagine what it must be like when they’re speaking a language no one else understands.

Nicky coughs, says something in Arabic, and rolls over so he can sit up. Joe is right there to help him even though it’s _obvious_ that Nicky doesn’t actually need any help. Soft, Nile thinks again. Soft with each other, with the members of their little band, with random people that they pass on the street. She doesn’t know how they’ve lived so many years and stayed soft but she suspects it’s for the same reason that all of their other traits are different than Andy and Booker—they’re Joe-and-Nicky.

“An abandoned warehouse,” Joe replies, switching to English.

“We got kidnapped by the most incompetent people imaginable,” Nile tells them.

“Did we?” Joe asks.

“You didn’t notice?” Nicky chides.

“I was a little wrapped up in you, habibi,” Joe murmurs and Nicky’s eyes go soft.

Nile makes a gagging noise. There is a time and place for their antics but this is definitely not it. They can be disgustingly romantic once they’re back at the safehouse.

Nicky glares at her but there’s no heat behind it. “One day, you will no longer be surprised by us.”

“I’m not surprised _now_. I’m trying to focus on how we’re going to get out of here.”

“You said they’re incompetent,” Joe says, switching into his professional mode. “How sure are you?”

“Pretty sure. I’ve been listening to them while you two napped—”

“—Ouch,” Joe mutters.

“—and I don’t think they gave us the wrong dosage on purpose.”

“So the question remains, did they figure out they killed us?” Nicky asks. He rolls his head to look at Joe. “Amore mio, I’m sorry but your dinner is going to have to wait. We need to know what they know.”

Joe swears in a language that doesn’t exist anymore, gloomily saying, “I was looking forward to that chicken. Nile, you would have loved it. He makes this lemon and white wine sauce, the recipe is from the 1500s, nearly perfected—”

“ _Nearly?_ ” Nicky asks. He sounds almost offended, which is every bit as hilarious as the situation they’ve ended up in.

“Habibi, it’s so good, you know it is, but you know I’ve always thought it needed mushrooms and—

“Mushrooms would _ruin_ it. How many times do I have to tell you—”

“—but if you just tried—”

“—I don’t have to try to know—”

“Quiet!” someone shouts from the other room.

As one, Joe and Nicky turn to glare at the door and then continue squabbling, this time in Italian. Nile can’t help but laugh. This is nothing like her kidnapping with Andy, which had felt more like an action movie (or a horror one depending on the viewpoint), or even like her own, which had mostly been a lot of waiting until the team had shown up ( _could_ she have broken herself out? Sure but that would have involved breaking her own wrist and she hadn’t wanted to do that).

As they bicker, she works on loosening the ropes around her wrists—further proof of their kidnappers incompetency because she twists her wrists the right way and the ropes just fall off—and then crawls over to Joe and Nicky to start working on theirs, who barely even bother stopping their argument to acknowledge her.

“Chi è il cuoco—thank you, Nile,” Nicky says, “in questa famiglia?”

Joe groans. “Non questo di nuovo—thank you, Nile.”

They suddenly stop as they hear footsteps coming from the other room. Nile glances at the two, they look back at her, and she’s suddenly glad that Andy insists on so much training because she knows exactly what it is they want her to do. She creeps to the door, stationing herself on one side of it, as Nicky positions himself on the other side. Joe stays in the center of the room, whistling to himself and generally looking as innocent as he can.

Again, she thanks whoever might be listening for the stupidity of their kidnappers as none of them even seem to think it’s suspicious that Joe and Nicky have stopped arguing. Instead, one of them steps right through the doorway, gun trained on Joe, wondering, “Hey, where are the other—”

He doesn’t even finish his sentence as Nicky sweeps his feet out from under him, neatly catching his gun and tossing it to Joe. The other two kidnappers shout and rush through the door, tripping over the first. Nile snatches the gun from one of them and Nicky takes the other. It’s over in moments, the kidnappers prone on the floor, no one else coming through the door, and their team with all the weapons.

Nicky trains his on the leader. “You were going to shoot Joe,” he says coldly. Nile shivers, remembering what Joe had once told her—that Nicky was the kind one. And for the most part he is: if they’re short on food, he always makes sure Nile ate first; he rescues baby birds; gives the local children in the village they’re hiding in candy. But when it comes to Joe, even when they’re immortal and it doesn’t matter if Joe gets hurt, he’s always hard. “You were going to hurt him and so you are the one who will answer my questions.”

“And if I don’t?” the kidnapper sneers.

Stupid, Nile thinks.

Nicky adjusts his aim and fires. The kidnapper screams, left hand going for his right shoulder, now a bloody mess. “Who do you work for?”

* * *

They’re leaving the warehouse, Joe and Nicky fussing over each other even though neither got shot, when Andy pulls up in their car, remarkable only because it’s practically falling apart. No one would look twice if they saw that on the road and that’s just how Andy likes it.

“I take it dinner is off, then?” she calls through the window.

“Sadly, yes,” Joe says mournfully, climbing into the backseat next to Nicky. “Nile, it’s such a shame. You really would have liked it.”

“Amore mio,” Nicky murmurs. “I’ll make you something else.”

“Nothing else could be as wonderful as the chicken you were going to make unless it is your smile, which warms even the coldest winter.”

Andy rolls her eyes and Nicky laughs.

“There it is. There’s that smile I love,” Joe murmurs, thumb gently touching the corner of his mouth.

“What about if I make you—” He slides into Arabic and Joe hums thoughtfully before responding in another language that Nile doesn’t know yet though she doesn’t think that it’s Italian.

“How was it?” Andy asks her as they drive off.

“Honestly?” She thinks about it for a moment and then says, “Best kidnapping yet.”


End file.
